Demolition Man Page 15

  Huxley barely managed to hold onto the steering wheel as the car lurched suddenly to the right.

  "Drive," ordered Spartan. "Keep it fast and steady."

  "So what, I just push one of these pedals . . .?"

  Huxley was holding the wheel, but wasn't looking where she was going. She was peering down at her feet, trying to guess which pedal was the brake, which was the accelerator, and which was the clutch.

  She shrugged her shoulders and guessed. She hit the gas, pushing it all the way to the floor. The engine screamed, and the whole car bounded forward, burning rubber as the heavy machine rocketed ahead.

  Spartan wasn't ready for the lurch, and he was thrown back, hanging on with one hand curled around the jagged lip of the ruined windshield.

  He lay on his stomach on the buckling roof and fired at Phoenix's car. The full clip seemed to perforate the vehicle's body, punching a dozen holes in the metal and swatting the side mirrors off the doors. Phoenix wove back and forth like a fighter pilot taking evasive action, trying to shake off a bandit on his tail.

  He glanced into his rearview mirror. The chewed front of the Olds was getting bigger and bigger as the car bore down on him, looking as if it would steamroller right over the flimsy police cruiser.

  "Time to get outta here," he said. What he really needed was more speed-and that meant persuading the internal speed governor on the automobile that he needed to go faster.

  "Computer!" Phoenix barked. "Velocity control override!"

  The computer wasn't going to be swayed so easily. "State nature of the emergency," the happy female voice asked.

  "Arson," yelled Phoenix. The car sped up a little, gaining a few miles an hour. It wasn't enough.

  "Armed robbery!"

  Grudgingly, the override doled out a tiny bit more acceleration.

  Phoenix was frantic now, the Olds almost on him. "No! it's better than armed robbery-"

  The car slowed down.

  "Worse!" Phoenix corrected himself. "Worse than armed robbery. No, it's murder. An entire family is being robbed in a burning building, and they're all getting killed! The whole family. Even the dog!"

  That was enough to alarm even an unflappable computer. The machine took the speed governor off completely and the car rocketed away.

  Watching the speed of the police car pick up dramatically, Lenina Huxley knew in a heartbeat what Phoenix had managed to do.

  "He's accessed velocity override!"

  "Don't worry about it," Spartan yelled back. "Just punch it!"

  "Excuse me?" screamed Lenina Huxley.

  "Push the pedal down as hard as you can," ordered Spartan. "Now!"

  Lenina Huxley was pretty sure she had done that already, but she found a little more give in the accelerator, and the car zoomed ahead, throwing Spartan forward onto the hot hood.-

  "Whoa! Whoa!" he screamed. "Slow down! Slow down!"

  But it was too late. Lenina was hardly in control of the car as it was; slowing down, down shifting and backing off was far beyond her skills.

  A second later the nose of the Olds rammed into the rear of the police cruiser, the force of impact catapulting Spartan onto the trunk. He fell heavily, denting the metal, and the Beretta flew out of his hand and soared into the night, clattering onto the roadway.

  "Great," said Spartan. "Just terrific."

  Phoenix could see that Spartan was hanging on- and he didn't like that. He shoved a MAC 10 out of the side window and fired, a line of bullets stitching across the rear quarter of the car. Spartan dove for the gun and smashed Phoenix's hand against the metal, then wrenched the weapon away. But just as he was ready to fire, Phoenix screamed loudly.

  "Open doors! Emergency! Emergency!"

  The gullwing doors of the police cruiser flipped open, throwing Spartan aside, tossing him up onto the roof of the vehicle. The gun was bashed from his hands, and he fell flat to the metal.

  Spartan was spread-eagle on the roof of the police car, his nails frantically digging into the paint finish, trying to find any kind of handhold. But the sleek aerodynamics of the car were almost perfect, and the wind rushing at him at more than a hundred miles an hour was blowing him backward.

  The terrible fall would probably kill him-but it didn't. Lenina was right there, right behind the cruiser, and she would probably run him over. It woud be an accident, and Lenina would feel bad- but Spartan would still be just as dead.

  Using all the strength he possessed, Spartan launched himself forward and wrapped one hand around the edge of one of the still open doors. He edged forward and jammed his shoulder between the door and the frame.

  "Close doors!" ordered Phoenix.

  The right door slammed shut, while the left crushed against Spartan's shoulder. He breathed deep and pushed back. The hydraulic mechanism whined in protest and Spartan growled.

  For a few seconds it was man against machine, each trying to destroy the other. But Spartan had more riding on the outcome-he could not afford to lose. With a burst of superhuman effort he wrenched the closing mechanism clean out of the door and then, for good measure, tore the door from its hinges, tossing the sheet metal into the street.

  Then Spartan slipped around the side and dropped straight into the car, throwing himself at Phoenix, punching him square in the head.

  Phoenix slammed into the side of the vehicle, bounced off the door and came back at Spartan with everything he had, triple-punching his enemy in the chest. The cryo-rehab was still pulsing through Phoenix's veins, and that plus the adrenaline surge he always got with pure violence made him stronger than John Spartan.

  The car was on auto-drive, so Phoenix was free to jump from the controls on Spartan. He shoved him out of the open door, grabbing him by the throat and thrusting his head out over the curb. They were rushing toward a fire hydrant, a few hundred pounds of cold pig iron, planted on the sidewalk. The pile of ungiving steel and Spartan's head were definitely on a collision course. If they hit, it would not be pretty.

  "You're dead, Spartan."

  Spartan grabbed Phoenix by the shoulders. "Speak for yourself."

  He hurled Phoenix over his head, catapulting him out of the car, throwing the maniac into the night. Spartan hauled himself into the car, missing the hydrant by inches.

  But there was a new obstacle to worry about. The car was doing better than a hundred and forty miles an hour-and it was aimed directly at the mammoth San Angeles Police Department headquarters building.

  Doubtless there was some kind of built-in anticol-lision system in the car, but Spartan didn't have a clue how to activate it. Better to do things the old-fashioned way.

  "Self-drive now!" screamed Spartan, and the steering wheel popped out of the dash. He grabbed and wrenched, but it was too late. The car hit the curb and vaulted into the night sky, going completely airborne. As it smashed into the glass wall of the police building, Spartan got the feeling he had suddenly driven into a blizzard.

  Nozzles popped from the floor of the station, spewing great geysers of thick, heavy foam. The showers of froth encased the car, filled it, and slowed it down, as if Spartan had driven into a giant vat of marshmallows.

  It was a curiously gentle end to such a wild ride- Spartan wasn't sorry it was over.

  2 1

  John Spartan straggled out of the cloud of white foam, hacking and coughing, wiping the stuff from his face. Lenina Huxley knew enough about driving a twentieth-century muscle car to bring it to a halt. She jumped out of the car and ran over to the wrecked police cruiser.

  "I thought your life force had been prematurely terminated," she said breathlessly.

  Spartan was still rubbing the foam from his face and tattered uniform. "Yeah, I thought I was screwed this time, too." He whipped his hands toward the ground, throwing off foam. "What is this stuff?"

  "Securofoam," said Lenina Huxley. "Many public buildings are protected by it."

  "I hate it," said Spartan.

  Despite her wild ride Lenina Huxley was still a membe
r of the SAPD. "Look at you," she said shaking her head. "You're a shambles!"

  "Don't worry about my uniform," he said. "I'll just knit myself a new one."

  Chief Earle was bearing down on them. He was red in the face and his eyes bulged. "John Spartan!" he screeched. "You . . . you caveman! You are under arrest. You are to be returned to the Cryo-Penitentiary forthwith!"

  Spartan all but ignored the man. "Yeah, I heard about that. Look, we'll talk later, okay?" He walked away from the police chief and started searching through the wreckage and foam.

  "What are you doing?" asked Huxley.

  "I need something, anything. A shotgun. A flare gun . . ." But Phoenix's arsenal had vanished. "Damn," he said. Then he looked up. "Holy shit!"

  Chief Earle couldn't believe his eyes either. "Stun batons on," he sputtered.

  Coming across the green lawns surrounding the police station were a hoard of Scraps, Edgar Friendly in the lead. Spartan's daughter, Katherine, was walking among them. Spartan smiled proudly- he expected no less.

  Every man was armed to the teeth-even the rebels carrying the litters bearing the bodies of the dead cryo-cons, killed in the subterranean firefight. Their corpses were draped with torn, dirty sheets, covering their chests and faces.

  But strangest of all was the sight of Alfredo Garcia walking with the Scraps as if he belonged with them.

  Spartan grinned. "Hey Garcia, you get a bump on the head and all of a sudden you become Pancho Villa."

  "Who?" asked Garcia.

  "Nevermind."

  "The time has come for us to take a stand," Friendly announced. The other Scraps nodded in agreement.

  "That's good," said Spartan. "Real good. But while you're at it, could you loan me a gun. Maybe two guns? Two guns would be better."

  Immediately, Scraps stepped forward, offering arms and ammunition from their ample supplies. Gratefully, Spartan strapped on two heavy handguns and crisscrossed his chest with two thick belts of ammunition. Now he looked like Pancho Villa ...

  Chief Earle was almost on the verge of tears. Guns always made him feel a little sick. His head spun-Scraps in his police station, guns, destroyed police cars . . . Truly, his world was coming to an end.

  "You would use these weapons of mass destruction against the men and women who uphold the law?" Chief Earle asked incredulously.

  Friendly smiled thinly. "We would use these weapons to shop for groceries."

  Spartan was ignoring this little exchange. Instead, he walked over to the litters and examined the bodies of the dead cryo-cons the Scraps had carried up from the Wasteland.

  When he saw their faces, he was stunned.

  "Who are these swarthy strangers?" asked Huxley.

  "I know these guys," said Spartan. "I arrested them years ago . . . Beppo Collins, the owner of twenty-two murders-at least, those are the ones we know about."

  "And the other?" asked Huxley.

  "Kodo Obata," said Spartan, his voice hollow. "I don't even want to tell you what he did." He looked very grim. "And they're out. There were more of them down there ..." Simon Phoenix didn't seem to care how much trouble he caused. Bringing these guys out of the cryo-pen was like opening Pandora's box. "I never thought I'd see these guys again. Kind of hoping I wouldn't." The fact that Kodo and Beppo were finally dead did not seem to reassure him all that much.

  "I once checked," said Lenina Huxley proudly. "Prior to your own cryo-incarceration, forty-five of the two hundred members in the multilife sentence wing of the cryo-prison were your arrests. Quite a record ..."

  "Right now that's not a very reassuring statistic," said Spartan. He couldn't help wondering how many of those forty-five Phoenix had sprung to join him in cutting a violent swath here in the future.

  "Hey, Dad," said Katherine, walking up to her father. "Here." She held something out in her hand. "You gave me this once. I think you might need it now."

  Katherine opened her hand. Spartan looked down and saw that she was clutching his old Los Angeles Police Department badge. It was dented and tarnished and rusted around the edges, but it remained his personal badge of office.

  "Thank you," he said.

  Katherine hugged him close. "For what it's worth, you have a family now," she said through her tears. "So try be careful, okay?"

  Spartan nodded. "I will."

  Katherine laughed. "No, you won't. Good luck, Dad."

  "Thanks kid." He smiled at his daughter gently, looking at her closely. Behind the wrinkles around the eyes and the smudge of dirt on her cheek, he could see the features of his wife. He felt as if thirty-six years of pain were washing away.

  Spartan strode over to the smoking Oldsmobile 442 and slipped behind the wheel. Lenina Huxley took her place in the passenger seat.

  Chief Earle capered around the car, waving his arms. "You can't leave. You're under arrest! This very concept negates the possibility of your departure."

  "Skip it." Turning the key in the ignition, he fired up the 442. Spartan revved the engine. The ground seemed to tremble and the air around the engine got hot.

  "Hey, Chief," said Spartan. "Negate this."

  Earle turned to Huxley. "Lieutenant! I order you to place this man-"

  Lenina cut him off abruptly. "Chief, take this job and shovel it."

  Spartan looked at her, wondering if he should correct her. He decided against it.

  "Close enough," he said. Then he stomped on the accelerator, and the Olds roared out into the night. There were bad guys out there, and John Spartan was going to find them. And then he was going to kill them.

  2 2

  In the entire history of the city of San Angeles, there had never been a more peculiar gathering in Cocteau's office than the one going on right at that moment. Cocteau was actually delighted to see Simon Phoenix and his outlandishly violent-looking band of killers striding into his office. Associate Bob, who tended to be a bit more timid, was less ecstatic.

  "I wasn't counting on this," said Cocteau, "but I must say you have worked out wonderfully, Simon Phoenix. People are terrified of you."

  Phoenix shrugged. "So what else is new? People have always been terrified of me."

  Cocteau nodded. "Of course, but the good citizens of San Angeles could never have dreamed that a fellow such as yourself ever existed. With your coming they are truly intimidated. Very gratifying-"

  "I'll bet," said Phoenix.

  "Was Friendly a problem?" Cocteau asked. "Or did you catch him completely off guard?"

  Phoenix was toying with the Airweight .38-caliber pistol stuffed into his belt. "Oh, Friendly? We caught him off guard.''

  Cocteau clapped his hands in joy, imagining the scene-Edgar Friendly suddenly set upon by Simon Phoenix and his crew and the Scraps leader having no clue whatsoever what had hit him.

  "That is marvelous work, Simon Phoenix. Absolutely marvelous."

  Phoenix shrugged modestly. "Yeah, well, you know how it is, Ray."

  "Now," said Cocteau. "Without him we will be able to separate the rest of the Scraps into isolated groups and administer an enzyme injection that will ensure the same IQ, the same needs, the same desire to think only happy thoughts-"

  "We will?" said Phoenix. "We will?"

  "And with the panic you'll create when I unleash you fully, the rest of the population will demand security cameras in every room, even bathrooms!"

  "Yeah," said Phoenix, "I've been meaning to ask you. Bathrooms. What is it with those three little seashells? I can't figure out what the hell is going on with those things. I mean, instead of toilet paper? What kind of bullshit is that anyway? I mean, it doesn't make sense, Ray. I thought things in the future were supposed to be better."

  But Cocteau was not paying attention. He was consumed with a vision of an even better San Angeles. "There will be more alarm systems controlling all kinds of misbehavior. There will be hot lines where people can inform on their neighbors' infractions. I'll have carte blanche to create the perfect society. My society."

  "Yo
ur society?" said Phoenix. That wasn't how he planned things at all.

  "San Angeles will be a beacon of purity with the order of an ant colony and the beauty of a flawless pearl."

  "Yeah," said Phoenix. "Right." He pulled the Airweight revolver from his belt and aimed it at Cocteau's head, his finger resting lightly on the trigger. "You know, Ray, I think you may have made a mistake."

  "A mistake? What mistake?"

  "You can't take away people's right to be assholes," he said, looking along the barrel of the gun. "It's un-American." Phoenix tugged on the trigger, but he couldn't pull it. He had forgotten that there was something in him that would not let him kill Cocteau, who continued to smile serenely.

  "Come, come, Simon Phoenix. Did you think I would bring you out of cryo-suspension without taking the precaution of programming you to be incapable of doing me physical harm? Please. You underestimate me. Simon Phoenix, you are incapable of killing me. You could never shoot me-not even if your life depended on it."

  "You know . . . ever since I met you, Ray," said Phoenix, shaking a finger at Cocteau, "you've reminded me of someone." He thought for a moment. "Nope. Can't place you."

  Cocteau smiled politely. He really wasn't all that interested in anything Simon Phoenix had to say. "So, you see, you cannot kill me, Simon Phoenix. So you might as well do my bidding."

  Phoenix nodded. "That's right. What can I say? You're right. I can't kill you. But he can." Simon Phoenix tossed the revolver to the nearest thug. "Do me a favor," he said. "Grease this guy. He's pissing me off."

  Fear raced across Cocteau's features as he realized his mistake. He had not, of course, programmed every cryo-con to be allergic to killing the Mayor-Gov.

  The goon-it was a mass-murderer named Adam-caught the gun and without hestitation fired, blasting eight shots into Cocteau's chest and head. The Mayor-Gov flew out of his chair and tumbled into the fireplace that decorated his office.

  "Somebody put another log on the fire ..." said Simon Phoenix. He looked at the dead former leader. Then he slapped his knee. "That's it! That's who you remind me of-an evil Mr. Rogers."